Threats Sent To Family Of Brooklyn Native Inside Arafat's Compound

New York 1 ^ | 4/2/02 | Andrew Siff

[hellinahandcart]

When Israeli tanks rolled into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's home base on Friday, it’s likely no New Yorker was closer to the front lines than Adam Shapiro.

The 30-year-old Brooklyn native, a volunteer rescue worker who assists Palestinian children in Israel, spent a night inside the besieged compound in Ramallah and told reporters that he had breakfast with Arafat over the weekend.

Back in Brooklyn, his brother Noah said the family is now getting threatening phone calls.

"I have gotten a couple of death threats where I live,” Noah said in an interview with NY1 Monday. “My parents have gotten multiple death threats where they live. Death threats to the extent: ‘There are a thousand Jews in Brooklyn who want your family’s blood on our hands. We would like to hand your brother and string him up.’”

Noah said the threats stem from a perception that his brother is a traitor because he criticized the Israeli government. But Noah maintains Adam is working for peace.

"They've called my brother the ‘Jewish Taliban,’” Noah said. “They’ve called my brother a self-hating Jew. They’ve called my brother a traitor. To each of those I say he has never punched anybody in his life.”

Noah said his parents have moved out of their Brooklyn home because of the ongoing death threats. He also said the family is increasingly concerned about Adam, who is still in the West Bank.

On Monday, Israeli tanks kept Arafat surrounded for a fourth straight day, while a car bomb explosion in Jerusalem marked the sixth terrorist attack against Israelis in as many days.

Adam Shapiro has seen his share of danger. He has lived in Israel for years, first working with a humanitarian group called Seeds of Peace and now for the International Solidarity Movement.

But his family said the recent round of violence was too intense, even for him.

"He called us inside the compound and needed help,” Noah said. “He has never done that before, so we knew he really needed help. And so we decided the only way we could do this was to get the media involved and get it out there, and it worked. He got released; it worked."

Adam told his family he'll be home in time for his wedding later this spring.

As for the threat against his brother, Noah said the NYPD told him they can't do anything without more specifics. Police said they'll do whatever they can to prevent any violence.

- Andrew Siff

[prophetic]

"But his family said the recent round of violence was too intense, even for him. "

Hmm, I wonder if he sounds like the other American Taliban?
Too intense eh? So what does this fool expect? To be having roses thrown down at his feet and streets filled with children waving & greeting him?

Make no bones about this guy everyone, he is a traitor. Nothing more, nothing less.

Didnt the President say that anyone who gives food, aid or assistance to our enemies is an enemy as well??

[montag813]

By any definition, he is a self-hating Jew.

No, he is a criminal and must be targeted for execution by the IDF.

[b4its2late]

I was wondering when the $hit was going to hit the fan with this guy. He appears to have a problem with the religion he was raised in. And it also appears to be more than just a phase..... Wonder what his parents think of him?

I also wonder about the Seeds of Peace organization he's been involved with over the last few years. Does their money come from the Middle East?

[kcvl]

30-year-old Brooklyn native, a volunteer rescue worker who assists Palestinian children in Israel

ALL LIES!

This is REAL Adam Shapiro...

OUR LATEST TRAITOR MUST LIVE WITH HIS VILE CHOICE

New York Post | 4/02/02 | ANDREA PEYSER

Posted on 4/2/02 12:28 AM Pacific by kattracks

Adam Shapiro

April 2, 2002 -- LIKE a bad dream, he appeared from nowhere.

Live from Ramallah - Adam Shapiro!

I was on the air with Bob Grant on WOR, 710 AM, yesterday. All of a sudden, the electronic gods and a mischievous producer conjured up the man I'd referred to in my column as the "Jewish Taliban."

Adam Shapiro. The kid from Brooklyn who spent Saturday night holed up in Yasser Arafat's compound as Israeli troops attacked, then ate breakfast with the terror-monger in the morning.

I asked him what he thought of American Jews who consider him a traitor.

"I really don't see how I'm a traitor. I want peace, an end to all violence."

Luckily, I had in hand my smoking gun - a transcript of Shapiro's Sunday interview on CNN, a network otherwise known as the Palestinian Liberation Organization's friend.

You called Israelis "Nazis!" I virtually shrieked. He chuckled, the arrogant putz. Never called Jews Nazis, he said.

I confronted Shapiro with his own words:

Israeli President Ariel Sharon's government "does not apologize for raping the [Palestinian] cities and for going in and carrying out terrorist action, going house to house, much like the Nazis did in World War II."

Well?

"I have seen them go house to house, in camps, here in Ramallah," he said, before slipping in the "fact" that Israelis carried out "summary executions." Like Nazis.

Whoa. Executions?

"A British observer working with CNN saw . . ."

Have you ever seen an Israeli execute an individual?

"I have seen the dead bodies," he tried.

How did you know how the "bodies" died Adam?

Adam Shapiro, 30-year-old American Jew, works in Ramallah with "humanitarian" groups sympathetic to the PLO.

"I'm here to work as a human shield for the Palestinian people," he said.

I had to ask one more thing. When you were breaking bread with Arafat, Adam, did you look him in the eye and ask him to stop the killing?

"I didn't have to," he said. "Yasser Arafat told me that he ordered a cease-fire."

You mean you sat down with Arafat, and you did not ask him to try everything? To beg families of suicide bombers to stop celebrating insanity?

"I'm not going to defend President Arafat." He calls him president.

Shapiro has deeply upset his Brooklyn hometown. Childhood friend Justin Cantor told me that when he heard his old pal's words on TV, "I thought I was stabbed."

"He is a traitor. He's Sheepshead Bay's John Walker Lindh."

Israel is at war for its existence. In America, we must chose sides.

Shapiro chose his.

Adam Shapiro's parents(both public school teachers) hold Adam's picture.

Half a world away in Brooklyn, Shapiro's parents fretted over when they next would see their son and answered questions about how a boy who once dreamed of being a rabbi could be holed up with the man many Jews consider a terrorist.

"My son works for peace,” Doreen Shapiro, Adam's mother, said at the family's home.

"What has he really done?” asked his father, Stuart Shapiro, who fears his son will be compared to American Taliban John Walker Lindh. "Tried to bring peace in any small way he can? That's bad?”

Adam Shapiro, a Hunter High School graduate and former Jerusalem director of Seeds of Peace, a camp for Palestinian and Israeli children, entered Arafat's compound Friday night after hearing reports of injuries.

Though not medically trained, he had spent the day in a Palestinian ambulance, using his U.S. citizenship to cajole Israelis to allow paramedics to treat wounded Palestinians.

Shapiro calls himself an atheist, according to his parents, who themselves are not observant Jews. He plans on coming back to the United States for his wedding in May, and to enter a graduate program in Washington, D.C., in September.

Despite some initial skepticism, Adam Shapiro's parents -- both public school teachers -- have embraced his cause, even though they are criticized. His mother calls his work "bearing witness,” and says Jews have strayed from being vigilant against persecution.

"It's a lot of difficulty talking about this, a lot of arguments,” Stuart Shapiro said. He said colleagues have questioned him about Adam, asking, "How can he do this? What is he doing? Let him help the Jews.”

To them, Stuart Shapiro said, his answer is, "Of all the people in the world, I believe my son.”

[veronica]

By any definition, he is a self-hating Jew...

A wise poster opined yesterday, the term self-hating Jew is inaccurate. He loves himself, it's the Jews he hates.

[Alouette]

Despite some initial skepticism, Adam Shapiro's parents -- both public school teachers -- have embraced his cause, even though they are criticized. His mother calls his work "bearing witness,” and says Jews have strayed from being vigilant against persecution.

[ladyrustic]

These idiots deserve what they get...

[kcvl]

NEW YORK, Mar 30, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- Steve Quester is spending his spring break in the West Bank.

Quester, a public school teacher, is joining about 20 other American activists who are traveling to the Palestinian territories to act as human shields for Palestinians as the Israeli military mounts retaliatory strikes for a series of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"We're going to put ourselves in the way between Israeli military aggression and a helpless civilian population," said Quester, 39, who departs Sunday for a ten-day trip. He and other activists, several of whom are already in the Mideast, plan to stay in Bethlehem, Nablus and Gaza.

The group, which includes Jewish and Palestinian Americans, hopes to engage in various nonviolent protests and activities "to stop the madness that's going on there," said Quester, who teaches first grade in the New York borough of Brooklyn.

Their goals include removing Israeli roadblocks around Palestinian towns, observing Israeli-controlled checkpoints, helping rebuild demolished Palestinians homes and accompanying Palestinians on protest marches, he said.

The activists are part of a growing contingent of foreigners, mostly from Europe, who are in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the Israeli occupation and recent military action. On Thursday, about 600 activists arrived in Ramallah, where Israeli tanks have surrounded the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat since Friday.

The U.S. activists are working in cooperation with a Palestinian-led coalition called International Solidarity Movement that has appealed to foreigners to bring attention to conditions under the Israeli occupation. This is the third time that Americans have made trips to the Mideast in conjunction with the coalition, most recently in December.

An American member of this coalition, Adam Shapiro, and an Irish woman, Caoimhe Butterly, spent Friday night inside Arafat's Ramallah compound. Shapiro left the offices Saturday, but Butterly decided to stay because she has medical training.

The Israeli siege is part of a major military offensive launched after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 22 Passover diners on Wednesday.

Quester, who has lived in Israel for three years and speaks fluent Hebrew and "shaky" Arabic, says his "heart breaks for everyone killed in the violence."

He believes the suicide bombers are "desperate and hopeless" and that that ultimately "all the heartbreak flows directly from Israel's policy" of occupying the Palestinian territories.

He hopes his trip will boost the morale of Palestinians "by seeing more internationals standing shoulder to shoulder with them."

"I'm a Jew," Quester said. "The Israeli army and government are perpetrating a great evil on the people of Palestine, and they're doing so in my name. I can't let this stand."

Also, as an American, Quester said he opposes the financial and military aid that the United States provides Israel, which in his opinion perpetuates the violence.

Israel receives more than dlrs 3 billion a year in civilian and military aid from the United States.

"We U.S. citizens have a special responsibility to stop the madness that's going on there," he said.

By MALCOLM FOSTER Associated Press Writer

[kcvl]

The invasion of Ramallah. Not an analysis.
By Huwaida Arraf

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo credits: Adam Shapiro

Press Here

Adam (my fiancee) and I hit the ground and from then on, maneuvered around the house on our hands and knees, not wishing to catch any bullets that might come flying through our window. What to do? I called CNN. Did they know?

"Hello, CNN? Do you know the Israelis are invading Ramallah? The tanks are on my street and heading towards the center of the city."

[kcvl]

Solving the Refugee Issue: Jews Driving Palestinians into the Sea
By Adam Shapiro

The long-chanted mantra of the Israeli defense establishment and the right-wing in Israel has been that the Arabs are seeking to destroy the Jewish state and to drive its inhabitants into the sea. Well, it seems that this is truly a case of the kettle calling the pot black. More...

[GovernmentShrinker]

I'm having a little trouble figuring out how a "volunteer rescue worker who assists Palestinian children in Israel" came to be holed up in Arafat's compound, and breakfasting with the notorious General/President. Guess it depends on how you define the word "assist" . . .

[kcvl]

Small group of American activists head to Palestinian territories to act as human shields

More info. on Shapiro and also on Steve Quester, the HIV-postive homosexual first-grade teacher from Brooklyn.

28 posted on 4/2/02 9:01 AM Pacific by seamole

[isthisnickcool]

I have seen them go house to house, in camps, here in Ramallah,"

I understand this contrived NLP type garbage. "Camps" is used like a vield reference to "concentration camps or to make people think people are living in tents".

Tough luck Adam Shapiro! People have me have waken up after 9/11. People like me that did not give a hoot about Israel now do! People like me that now know that Islam wants to kill all that is not Islam. Especially the Jews! Just like the Nazis did. I now know that there are no Palestinians and that it's a farce that there are such a "people". They are a rabble from other countries that include godless freaks like the murdering Egyptian Arafat who promotes human sacrafice. By breeding suicide bombers. Arafat might as well take the children, lay them on his altar and cut their hearts out!

Long live Israel!

[kcvl]

One of Adam's "friends" from the above post...

Caoimhe Butterly - A PROFESSIONAL PROTESTER!!!

POLITICAL PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE IN CHIAPAS.

Cristina Riba and Caoimhe Butterly report from Mexico

On the third of July, the day following the Mexican presidential elections, four prisoners in the penitentiary center Cerezo number 10 in the municipality of Comitan, Chiapas commenced on an indefinite hunger strike. The four are sympathisers of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and as political prisoners have included among their demands the immediate release of 80 other political prisoners incarcerated in the Chiapan jails who were imprisoned specifically for their connections or allegiances to the EZLN.

[kcvl]

An Irish woman is reported to be trapped in Mr Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. Caoimhe Butterly, from Dublin, is a member of a group called the International Solidarity Movement. Members of the group said she had been working as a voluntary medic and had gone in to President Arafat's headquarters in an ambulance.

The group said Israeli troops stopped the ambulance on the way out, arrested the Palestinians on board and forced Ms Butterly back into the compound. Members of the group are currently trying to gain access to the compound.

----------------------------------

Irish national Caoimhe Butterly is still inside the compound! Those in Ramallah are incredibly concerned and are asking everyone to call their respective governments to request the Israeli military cease the destruction and carnage.

--------------------------------

Ms Butterly who is a volunteer medic decided yesterday to remain in the compound after the Irish government made representations on her behalf.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai yesterday ordered 10 activists, including a prominent French anti-globalization campaigner, from the group known as International Protection for the Palestinian People to be expelled.They were members of a group of 32 people from Europe and the United States, who made world headlines Sunday when they marched past IDF troops and entered Chairman Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters in Ramallah. Group members were accused of concealing 13 terror suspects as they left. The suspects and 10 members of the foreign group were detained for questioning. The ministry said they had violated the terms of their visa permits. The 10 activists were led by Jose Bove, the French farm union leader well known for his anti-globalization campaigns. None of the ten can return to Israel for 10 years. (Jonathan Lis)

[white trash redneck]

Perhaps they would prefer to be treated the way the Arabs deal with their traitors?

[Salman]

Reminds me of an old joke.

A business in a Jewish neighborhood has the sign
"I would rather serve one Arab than one hundred Jews"

The business is a funeral parlor.

[hellinahandcart]

Think you might like this; consider it a bookend to the saga of Steve Quester.

[hellinahandcart]

Wow, how did I miss that Post article? Thanks.

So he's an atheist who once dreamed of being a rabbi. Bet that was before he discovered communism in college. And his parents are so clueless. They must believe the "International Solidarity Movement" really is a humanitarian organization full of peaceful people like their son.

What they really are--people who want the Israelis to hold still so they can be killed more easily.

[uncbob]

Noah said the threats stem from a perception that his brother is a traitor because he criticized the Israeli government. But Noah maintains Adam is working for peace.

Well what did these people think Jane Fonda was during Vietnam